Jumper: Griffin's Story

by Steven Gould

  That wasn’t quite as bad. “Will I be able to call you?”

  “Hmmm. I don’t see why not. We’ve got call waiting. He’ll know you called, though—he’ll check the numbers when he gets home—so make sure it’s from San Diego, right?”

  “Right.”

  I heard a noise in the background. “They’re calling me for supper. Gotta go.”

  “Okay. Je t’aime.”

  “Damn straight,” she said.

  I did laundry. The sheets needed changing. I bought more sheets, a nicer comforter, more pillows. She’d complained about my not having music, so I bought a large portable stereo, one that could run off my twelve-volt power system, and a selection of CDs. I stocked up on her favorite diet cola and some snacks, healthy and otherwise. She liked those weird rice cakes, the ones that are like Styrofoam, so I bought a case of those.

  I bought a better portable toilet for my bathroom nook, one that used chemicals to keep the smell down. I could still dump it in the same pit toilet at the park picnic area and it had a nicer seat.

  I added two more solar water heaters for the shower back in Oaxaca.

  Well, that killed three days.

  My side was getting better. While no longer tender, it pulled when I moved my upper body, so I began doing some stretches.

  I bought a heavy bag and a stand for it, but it wasn’t stable on the uneven floor of the cave, so I ended up setting it in concrete. After a few days of hitting this, I also went back to the makiwara in the Empty Quarter. One of them had been taken, maybe used for firewood, and I had to reset a couple of the others that had come loose in the soil.

  My left side was weak, the tugging from the scar profound. I doubled up on that side, both the stretches and the strikes, and there was some improvement.

  I talked to E.V. every weekday afternoon.

  “Now he’s even more suspicious. He’s wondering why you weren’t calling before and now you are.”

  “Oh, great. Should I stop?”

  “Hell, no! But if this keeps up, I’m thinkin’ you might join me in the afternoons. I mean, I’ve got a bed.”

  “I’ve never been in your room. In fact, it was only that one day that I was in your house—when I brought the sketch—and then later, when I met Patrick and Booger.”

  “Yeah? What does that mean?”

  “I can’t jump without a clear memory. I mean, I can jump someplace I can see, but otherwise I really need to be familiar with it. That’s why I have all those sketches.”

  “Hmm. Well, I’m really getting desperate, if you know what I mean.”

  “Believe me, I know”

  At three weeks, her father relented.

  I met her at our usual spot and we went straight to the Hole. She approved of the pillows and the comforter and the toilet but I don’t think she noticed until after the second time.

  “Oh, God. I needed that. Boy, did I need that” She poked at my arm. “You’ve been exercising.”

  “Yeah. Especially my right arm.”

  We showered together in Oaxaca, washing each other slowly. The temperature was just right.

  After we were dressed, we sat in the sun on the beach below, me on a rock and her in the sand at my feet. I brushed her hair until it was dry.

  I left her in our corner of Mercer Cemetery. I wanted to walk her home but she kissed me and said, “No. Not when you’re supposed to be in San Diego. See you Thursday!”

  She was there on Thursday but pale.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, I’ve got a headache,” she said. “But I’ve also got some good news. I told them I’d be out until nine. Some friends of mine are playing the Teen Club. We’re to lend moral support. They’re not that good a band but they play really loud.”

  I was stunned by the good fortune. “That’s almost six hours!”

  “Well, we do have to actually go to the club—but I don’t intend to get there until seven at the earliest.” She looked anxious. “That okay?”

  “You’re not worried someone will see me and tell your parents?”

  “I want to dance with you.”

  “Have you seen me dance? Anyway, we can find places to dance far from Trenton.”

  She shook her head. “I want us to go.”

  “¡Claro que si! At your command. And what do we do before then?”

  “I don’t know about you, but I want to screw.”

  There was something wrong. She was clinging to me hard, almost desperately.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Don’t stop!” She buried her face in my chest and pulled me hard against her. The lights were dim but it seemed like her eyes were wet. She dug her nails into my back and I forgot everything but moving.

  When she came it was loud, almost anguished, great shuddering gasps, and what little control I had went with it. I was drowsy and she pulled my head onto her shoulder. “Sleep. This once, we’ve got the time.”

  I thought it might still be her dad. It must be hard to have to lie to your parents. I worried for a moment that it might be me but she was holding me close and stroking my back.

  She woke me again later and we made love once more, long and lingering. Then she looked at her watch and said, “Fuck. Quick shower?”

  The sun was low in Oaxaca but the water was still warm and “quick” was the word, for the mosquitoes were coming out.

  The Teen Club was nearer the Delaware River, but still walkable, and while it was cold in Trenton, it wasn’t as cold as it had been the week before. I was wearing my anorak but the minute we’d paid our cover and got inside, I took it off and carried it because the club, either from too much central heat or too many occupants, was like an oven, worse than Oaxaca.

  Many of these kids clearly didn’t use deodorant.

  The band was loud and they weren’t terribly guys on drums, guitar, and bass, and three girls on vocals. They tended toward punk with industrial overtones and either the club had a full light setup or these kids had way too much money. There were strobes and motorized track lights and lasers and a smoke machine.

  Conversation was barely possible if you shouted or if you timed your sentences in the gaps. They sold refreshments but no alcohol. Most of the customers were under twenty-one but some weren’t, and there were chaperones, leaning against the walls, eyes moving restlessly. One of them had his fingers plugged firmly into his ears.

  There were tables around the edge but they were all taken, either occupied or piled high with coats. I yelled in E.V.’s ear, “Why don’t I drop our coats back at my place?”

  “What?”

  It took two more efforts to make her understand. “Oh! Okay.” She took her pocketbook and something else out of her coat pockets before pushing the coat into my arms.

  I wandered back toward the bathrooms, looking for an unoccupied corner, but there were kids making out in the dark hallway. The bathroom itself, though, was empty, and I jumped carefully.

  To return I jumped back to an empty lot we’d crossed walking here. There was a streetlight but it had been smashed and I’d remembered being a little uncomfortable taking E.V. that route, picking my way across the junk-strewn ground.

  By myself, I didn’t care, even when I saw three guys moving from the edge of the lot into the middle, to block my way. I kept walking straight at them and when one of them lifted a pipe in his hand and said, “Stop,” I just jumped past them, to the sidewalk at the corner.

  One of them yelled and another was saying, “What the fuck!” over and over and over. I looked back and saw that they’d turned, perhaps having heard my footsteps on the walk, but they were making no move to follow.

  I was still grinning when I showed the man at the door the stamp on my hand.

  E.V. was standing near the refreshment bar juggling two drinks and her pocketbook. The dancing had spread and she was having a hard time keeping the drinks safe from flying arms and jumping bodies. She was watching the back hallway to the bathrooms, the direction I’d left
, and her face was anxious, as if she was afraid I wouldn’t come back or something.

  I tapped her shoulder and she jumped. I’d swear she screamed but the music was so loud, it may have been just a gasp. Both drinks hit the floor, though, together, spraying my legs and hers.

  I did hear her say “Fuck!” quite distinctly—it was one of those lulls in the music. “Sorry, sorry” She started to reach down but I caught her shoulder and stopped her. The floor was already littered with paper cups stamped flat by the dancers.

  The band reached the end of one number and the drummer and the lead vocalists were discussing something off mike. In the momentary silence I said, “What are we drinking?”

  “I got you a Sprite. You know what I had. And I dropped them both! Whatever you want.”

  I managed to place the order just before the band started up. Payment was successfully accomplished with hand signs. I delivered her diet soda and tried my coffee. It was in a Styrofoam cup, too hot to drink and, in this environment, potentially disastrous. First- or second-degree burns, I thought, and turned suddenly back toward the bar to get some cream or ice to cool it down.

  He was older than the kids around him, dressed grunge, but he’d been stepping forward when I saw him, his left hand held out slightly, chest high, his other hand held low by his leg. He lunged as the stage strobes were flashing and the knife cut upward in discrete stop-motion steps.

  I stepped back, bumping someone dancing, and threw the coffee straight out. He jerked back, clawing at his face and shirt. There was other movement, sudden, not the puzzled reaction of bystanders but deliberate motion among the dancers, and I turned. E.V. was fumbling with something, but I grabbed her and jumped.

  Electric current, burning, contracting my entire body. I spasmed away from E.V The bright blue sky dimmed and flared. My hands scrabbled across gravel and sand but I couldn’t make them do anything.

  E.V. screamed, “No! No! NOOOOOOOOO!”

  I blinked hard trying to get my sight to behave. We were alone, in the Empty Quarter. I thought she’d been attacked—was being attacked. She was on her knees, on the ground, hunched over, holding herself up with extended arms. Her pocketbook had spilled open showing a cell phone and money and a small-unlabeled prescription-medicine bottle. There was a black cylinder, perhaps seven inches long, clutched in her other hand.

  “I’m okay,” I said. I wasn’t that sure, but she was horribly upset. I wanted to reassure her.

  “Take me back! Now!”

  She was suddenly leaning over me, one hand grabbing my sweater, the other shaking the black cylinder in my face.

  “What?” My muscles were starting to work again and I tried to sit up but she shoved me back down again. She was crying and she looked desperately afraid.

  “TAKE ME BACK!”

  She jammed the cylinder into my side and the current and the burning came again. My back arched so much my heels and head were the only thing touching the ground. This time I passed out completely.

  The sun was dropping below the horizon when I came to. E.V. was coming down the ridge, stumbling, tripping over rocks. She was crying, her eyes so filled with tears she could obviously hardly see.

  I sat up. My muscles felt like I’d run a marathon, lactic acid soreness, and there was a burn on my side and another on my back, but I felt like I could jump if I had to.

  She had the cell phone in one hand. I didn’t see the black rod.

  “I didn’t know you had a cell phone,” I said. I felt insane. Surely this is what a psychotic break is like?

  She stopped, then threw the phone onto the sand between us. “It’s not mine. It belongs to them.”

  Oh, fuck.

  She pulled the black rod out of her back pocket and I tensed, but she threw that down, as well. “And that. And those pills.” She gestured to where her purse still lay. “I dropped the drink. Why’d I drop the drink? It would be over if I hadn’t dropped the drink!”

  I looked back at the purse, at the pill bottle. “What kind of pill was it?”

  She looked away. “They said it would knock you out. So they could catch you.” She looked back at me and winced. “Yeah, I know. If you’d jumped it wouldn’t do any good, even if you passed out after. It had to be poison.”

  “You knew that?” It felt like my face was going to break. “You knew that and … maybe that’s why you dropped it.” Then the rest of it hit me. “They have your parents.” I didn’t ask it—I said it.

  She dropped to her knees. “They killed my father. They cut his fucking throat right in front of me! And then they put the knife against my mother’s neck!”

  “Oh, God. I’m so sorry.” I got up and walked over to her but she shoved me away. She kicked at me and clawed and I stepped back, then dropped down and sat on my heels. “How did they find you? Was it me? Did they track some of my jumps in Trenton?”

  She was lying on her side, curled in. “He did it! Goddamn him. He did it. He wanted to check up on you. After he found that sketch, he got a friend to run a criminal check. They showed up with police badges and he answered all their questions. He gave you to them on a silver platter and then they cut his throat. Daddy, you idiot! The fucking phone won’t get a signal! Oh, God. They’ll kill them both!”

  Oh. “They have your brother, too.”

  She screamed again and pounded the ground with her fists.

  I understood, then. “You went up on the ridge to try and get a signal. If you’d reached them, what would you have done? Come down and finished me? Wait until they came and confirmed my death?”

  She jumped up and ran down the arroyo, north. She was still sobbing. I pocketed the phone and, cautiously, the black cylinder, then took up her purse. I let her get about fifty yards away and tripped her, appearing beside her path with my foot outstretched. While she was still down, I hooked the waistline of her jeans and jumped her back to the Hole.

  She looked at the bed and collapsed on the floor, sobbing, sobbing.

  I couldn’t stand it and I jumped away, to the Greenwood Shell petrol station across from her high school. There, in the light of the fluorescents, I looked at the rod. It had four projecting electrodes, sharp, for sticking through clothing, and a slide switch, like on an electric torch. I turned it on, but it didn’t spark, so I suspected it was actuated when a partial conductor bridged the points.

  I took out the cell phone and called, using the only number in the cell phone’s call log.

  “Speak.” It was Kemp’s voice.

  “She’s dead. I blame you.”

  I hung up.

  I didn’t want to hear his threats against Mrs. Kelson or E.V’s brother, Patrick. I wanted to lower the bar, remove any reason for the bastards to kill them. The phone buzzed in my hand, vibrating, and I thought about throwing it away. Instead I held down the power button until it turned completely off.

  I jumped back to the Hole. “Where did they have them?”

  She flinched at my voice and looked up at me. “What?”

  “Where did they have your mother and brother?”

  “They said they’d be moving them. Not to bother with a rescue since they wouldn’t be there.”

  I looked at the ceiling and squeezed my eyes shut. “That’s what they said. Where were they when they killed your—when they threatened your mother?”

  “In the basement. They were all in the basement.”

  “How many of them were there? That you saw?”

  “I don’t know. None of the men at the club were the men at the house. There were four at the house.”

  I jumped.

  The house was dark. I’d walked from the petrol station, expecting them to show up in cars or on foot. Hell—I half expected them to parachute in.

  But they hadn’t.

  I remembered the bomb at Alejandra’s and I wondered if that’s what they had in mind. I jumped away, to the Empty Quarter, and then back again.

  Nothing.

  I kicked the front door in and jumped away
, to the sidewalk.

  The dog began barking from the backyard.

  I went around the side. There were covered stairs—storm-cellar type, just short of the fence. Booger danced on the other side, barking and wagging his tail at the same time. I tugged at the handle and it opened but I jumped back to the sidewalk before it swung to the side.

  Nothing.

  I remembered the bomb in San Diego, the one they’d set for movement in the house, unless a door was opened first. They’d used a cell phone trigger in Mexico. How about here? Surely they knew I was here. Even if they were all over at the Teen Club, they could surely feel my jumps.

  Or they were waiting inside.

  Standing just inside the front door, I flipped the light switch up and jumped back to the sidewalk. The light came on. Nothing exploded. No one jumped out of the coat closet with a knife or a stun gun. I jumped into the house, to the end of the hallway where it ended at the kitchen, then away.

  Nothing.

  I returned and flipped on the light switch in the kitchen and jumped away.

  Outside, I moved down the cellar steps. The door was locked but it had a diamond square glass inset. I showed my head and jumped away.

  Nothing.

  There was nothing to see—the lights were out and it was pitch black within. I found the inside cellar stairs leading down from the kitchen. There was a light switch at the top. I flipped it and jumped away.

  A few minutes later I looked back in the glass inset from the outside cellar door.

  Mr. Kelson was on the floor, facedown, his hands cable-tied behind his back. They’d done it next to the floor drain so there wasn’t as much blood as I’d seen in Consuelo’s kitchen. On the far wall, pushed up against a leaning pile of disassembled cardboard cartons, Mrs. Kelson and Patrick Kelson were in wooden chairs, their legs duct-taped to the chair’s front legs, their arms duct-taped to the chair arms. Duct tape covered their mouths, running all the way around their heads, and there was duct tape across their eyes, too.